ADB pledges $5bn to India’s ECEC East Coast Economic Corridor

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) yesterday committed $5bn to develop infrastructure along India’s East Coast Economic Corridor (ECEC) over the next five years. Complementary to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make in India campaign which aims to boost manufacturing by attracting foreign investment and facilitating the establishment of manufacturing hubs. The ECEC is a 2,500km long economic corridor stretching along India’s eastern coast from Kolkata in the north to Kanyakumari in the south, whose aim is to create international gateways at Visakhapatnam, Kakinada, Amaravati, and Srikalahasti (Yerpedu) that will eventually boost commerce between India and both East and Southeast Asia. Although trade with the two regions is rapidly increasing, the lack of efficient transport networks between the production clusters in northern and central India and its east coast ports (where there is also insufficient container capacity) means that most of that trade passes through the ports on India’s west coast. The loan fund from ADB will be used to build state-of-art industrial clusters, roads, efficient transport, reliable water and power supplies at the four centres. Work on the first phase of the project – the the 800 km Visakhapatnam-Chennai Industrial Corridor – is already under way.